Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-025#013

Newport Aug 20th / 55
Dear Mary,
The news of Mr Lawrence’s death will not surprise you, but you will feel, as we do, grateful to have known so genial & kind-hearted a man. Papa feels his loss keenly, having been for more than twenty years intimately associated with him, - so many of his contemporaries having departed. After the funeral, we hope to see him here to cheer him up a little, - Such a very long illness, more than two months without leaving his bed, must have been [p. 2] very exhausting to poor Mrs Abbott & her daughters. She especially would do everything, & all thro’ the hot summer! We have heard yet none of the particulars of Mr L’s latter days, but he retained his consciousness until the last, nearly.
We hope papa will bring Sydney Smith which we are very impatient to read. Some of its witty sayings are illuminating the newspapers, and whetting one’s appetite for the whole book. It seems to give people a new revelation of the beauty of his character, which, here, they knew little about.
[p. 3] The boys are very happy in the acquisition of a Shetland pony, as obstinate as most of his race, & their skill is greatly exercised in subduing his will to theirs. – The Longworths are at the ‘Ocean House’ & their boys play much with ours – They are the same age but with a droll Cincinnatian drawl. He, Longworth, is just the same as he was twenty years ago, as he politely reminded me, before all our bachelors was the date of his first acquaintance with me. He talks in the same strain, but has grown coarser-looking. Hiis wife is very ladylike & pleasing. She was a Miss Rives of Vir [p. 4] ginia. He speaks much of Jewett, & seemed much touched by a characteristic anecdote of his death told him at Keene. [crossed out: that] Jewett, on hearing of his approaching end, asking for a glass & surveying in it every change of color & expression, & having read Louis Napoleon’s “L’empire c’est la paix” – saying at the last – “La mort c’est la paix.”
Miss Peabody has sent me a formidable manuscript, a memorial she wrote upon the death of one of Kossuth’s sisters, which she intends to publish, but, as it cannot be done directly, wishes me, for the benefit of another sister, to read it to a select few who may be inspired by it to subscribe a few hundred dollars. Think what a hopeless task in such a gay place as this! Mr Thay [p. 1 cross] er is engaged at last - & to Miss Granger, of N. York state. You remember her & how well she will do the honors of his big house, tho’ her land style is not to my taste. Curtis thinks very highly of her character. I hope you keep up yr spirits thro’ all these tiresome delays.
Yr affte
Fanny

• Keywords: correspondence; long archives; frances e. a. longfellow papers (long 20257); frances elizabeth (appleton) longfellow; people; document; events; death; places; united states; ri; newport; subject; family life; travel; social life; Correspondence (1011/002); (LONG-SeriesName); Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001); (LONG-SubseriesName); 1855 (1011/002.001-025); (LONG-FileUnitName)